


Experimental Magic

by ArbitrarilyImportant



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Origin Story, Time Skips, based on an ask prompt i got
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 15:20:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9908477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArbitrarilyImportant/pseuds/ArbitrarilyImportant
Summary: Even now, when the Champion of Kirkwall is called 'Hawke', she takes a moment to respond.It makes sense - she was raised Amell, after all.





	

The day the new boy was brought to the tower, Thalia Amell was trying to summon spirits.

She had begged a senior enchanter for access to the roof, claiming she wanted to practice elemental magic - a believable lie, considering the number of burnt books and drenched carpets she was responsible for.

Once the elder apprentice who had accompanied her had wandered off, however, she turned from the candle she was meant to be lighting to the row of sun-wilted plants. Medicinal herbs, mostly, kept for use in potions and tonics, they were suffering under the oppressive heat of an unusually warm summer.

Cupping her hands around a shrivelled bulb, she closed her eyes and tried to remember the instructions she had overheard a few days prior, eavesdropping on a healing class.

_“Reach into the fade; demons are not its only inhabitants, remember. Spirits, the other of the Maker’s first children, also dwell there, and if you can convince them they will assist you in healing otherwise impossible injuries._

_“Call to them, convince them of the nobility of your goal, and they will come.”_

Thalia tried to do so, nine-year-old face screwing into an almost comical expression of concentration as she willed for otherworldly attention. It was difficult. She kept being distracted, by the call of a high above bird, or a bead of sweat running down her back, or an itch on her nose, or _Maker are those footsteps._

She whirled around, tucking her hands behind her back, and there was a Templar, holding the arm of a skinny little blond in a cruel grip. ( _No, not cruel, it’s just what they have to do to keep us safe.)_

“Amell,” the Templar told her, “the first enchanter says you’re to watch this one.” The woman’s helmet made her voice echo oddly, but the sneering tone was still obvious. “He’s an Ander, so good luck making him listen to you.”

Thalia nodded, trying to suppress a scowl that forced its’ way out as soon as the Templar’s back was turned. The boy winced as his arm was released, cloth of his shirt crumpled where it had been held. He, too, glared at the Templar’s retreating figure, but the fear beneath the expression was obvious even to Amell.

Studying him with a critical eye, Thalia asked, “Well? Do you have a name? I’m Thalia.” The boy said nothing, only staring at her. She scoffed. “Okay, then. What’s an Ander?”

Allowing a few seconds for an answer, but receiving none, she shrugged and returned to the blossom she was attempting to revive. “Don’t wander off, or we’ll both be in for it,” she warned, cupping her hands once more around the stalk

In the moments before closing her eyes, she saw him move closer, staring at the faint glow of her hands.

The first-time Thalia saw Anders smile was a few weeks later when, finally, she made a plant bloom green.

—

Thalia had seen her chance, and she took it. She had been sent to the entry hall, with a message for one or another of the Templars, when she felt a shiver in the fade flow over her, moments before the screaming started.

The Templars had, of course, run off, only noticing her enough to bark a ‘ _stay here’_ as they drew their swords and rushed the stairs. The doors to the Circle were, for the first time in Thalia’s memory, completely unguarded, and she barely hesitated a moment before pushing them open and stepping into the gloomy dusk.

She didn’t care about, barely even noticed, the chilled winter’s air piercing her thin robes; she took her first steps in years outside the confines of the tower to the sounds of yells and fireballs bursting. She knew she’d be apprehended any moment, forced back inside the stone walls, and so didn’t bother to hide as she gazed at the sky and tilted her face to the breeze.

“ _Is this what he felt like?_ ” she wondered. “ _Every time he escaped?_ ”

Distracted as she was, it took her at least a minute to realize no one had come after her. Realizing the opportunity she had somehow, miraculously, been given, and suddenly aware of the limited time she had available, Thalia hiked up the hem of her robes and sprinted down the island to the lake’s edge.

Looking around desperately for the Templar’s rowboat - she had seen them using it from her window, it had to be here somewhere - she took a few steps in the direction of the boathouse before thinking, “N _o, there’d be Templars there for sure_.”

Thinking back to the plans she and Anders had once concocted, half asleep, in the middle of the night, she took as deep a breath as she could manage and held her hands over the choppy water of Lake Calenhad. “ _Maker_ ,” she prayed, “ _please let this work_.”

Facing the distant smudge she knew to be the shoreline, she summoned ice, the breath of winter, the season of potential. Never had she so regretted her lack of skill in elemental magic.

Thalia thought of only one thing, her barely remembered father’s voice, drunken, lowered in confidence. “ _It was my daughter’s aunt, you know. She caused the biggest scandal of the year, eloping with - can you believe it - a mage. Hawke, or some rubbish._

_“They ran to Ferelden, last I heard they were in one of those muddy, dog stinking towns down south. Lothering?”_

Lothering. She would cast this damn bridge, and find her aunt, or die trying.

—

As it turns out, the commonly accepted rules of magic are commonly accepted for a reason, namely the fact that attempting to circumvent them tends to lead to property damage or personal injury. Hawke’s aching back was certainly testament to the fact, as were her singed brows and reddened cheeks.

Then again, the redness may not have been caused by the explosion that had just ripped a new pathway through the wounded coast. “Anders,” she yelled, picking her way through the rubble. “I told you I wasn’t ready, you ass! The sigil hadn’t even finished setting!”

Anders, distracted as he was by the purple flames burning through his robes at a frankly alarming rate, didn’t reply until Hawke had covered a good portion of the hundred-odd yards separating them. “Sorry! I think it was the stone,” he called, wincing at her furious glare and definitely not smothering a laugh at her appearance. “It cracked, right down the middle. It was the fade, do you feel it? It’s not…” he trailed off, searching for the right word.

“Bendy enough?” Hawke suggested, crouching down to examine the broken rock. Blowing hair that had been shaken free of its braid from her face, she ran light fingers along the break, careful not to touch the remnants of the paired sigil.

“Ha! Yes, it’s not bendy enough. I think that’s the furthest we can safely separate them, probably less in areas where the Veil’s not so damaged.”

The Wounded Coast, despite having seen more than its fair share of death, gave no indication of its’ bloody history. It was, in fact, resplendent in the setting sun, cliffs bathed golden and sea shimmering a thousand different colours, if one ignored the occasional skeleton. The violence which gave the area its name, while not enough to ruin the view, was certainly sufficient to thin the Veil to the point where magical experimentation was easy.

Hawke pulled Anders down beside her, careful to avoid the singed edges of his robes that were beginning to turn a particularly nasty yellow. “Do you see how this cracked, though? Inwards, towards the centre, but in my direction.”

“justice says by moving them that far apart, we’re linking parts of the Fade that don’t want to be linked. He says it can’t be done.”

“Bully for justice,” Thalia snorted. “It’s possible to extend magical effects, we’re just pushing it a little further.”

“A little further? Hawke -” Anders turned to her, an expression of incredulity on his face, which quickly morphed into something quite different.

“What?” she demanded, narrowing her eyes at his change in manner.

“it’s nothing. You just look all…” a pause, a wave of his hands. “Exploded-y.”

“’Exploded-y’?” A grin playing on her lips, she leaned up and gave him a quick kiss. “You’re a fool, sometimes, you know that? Come on, I want to give it another try before the sun sets completely.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was based on an ask I got, calling for my Thalia Hawke+Anders and experimental magic. It's the first I wrote in a long time, so I'm sorry if it's not fantastic ><  
> I was considering writing a proper fic about Thalia, what do you think?
> 
> Thanks for reading <3


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